Head-to-head competition did no favors to Alamo and Holiday Bowl ratings.
Thursday’s TCU-Stanford Alamo Bowl had 4.3 million viewers on ESPN, down 5% from last year (OKST-Colorado: 4.6M), down 42% from the 2015-16 season (TCU-Oregon: 7.4M), and the smallest audience for the game since 2007 (Penn State-Texas A&M: 3.8M). Ratings were not immediately available.
Despite the ten-year low, the Horned Frogs’ high-scoring win ranks as the most-watched of the bowl season through Thursday.
The Alamo Bowl faced rare competition from the Holiday Bowl on FS1. Though both games suffered from the ratings cannibalization, the Holiday Bowl was mostly devoured.
Just 1.6 million viewers tuned into Michigan State-Washington State, down 60% from last year (Minnesota-WSU: 4.0M), down 62% from 2015 (Wisconsin-USC: 4.2M) and the smallest Holiday Bowl audience in more than a decade. Prior to this year, the game aired on ESPN.
The previous low was 2.9 million for Baylor-UCLA in 2012.
Fox Sports’ other bowl game also hit a multi-year low. Wednesday’s Purdue-Arizona San Francisco Bowl had 2.1 million on the FOX broadcast network (-19%), that game’s smallest audience since 2012 on ESPN2 (ASU-Navy: 1.1M). It trailed all three bowl games on ESPN that day, including the 1:30 PM ET Independence Bowl (2.2M).
Returning to Thursday’s action, Oklahoma State-Virginia Tech scored 4.3 million in the Orlando Bowl — up 2% from last year (Miami-WVU: 4.3M) and the highest since 2014. It ranks second among bowl games through Thursday.
It was the exception on a day of declines. The Military Bowl completed the downward spell with 2.05 million for Navy-Virginia (-2%) — the game’s smallest audience since 2012 (SJSU-Bowling Green: 1.9M).
For all college football bowl ratings, and the regular season, the college football ratings page is available here.
CORRECTION 12.31: TCU-Oregon was the Alamo Bowl two seasons ago, not last season.
